Connected Site Page Task List Columns

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    • #410710

      Hi Community!

      Does anyone know how to add project server columns to the automatically generated task list that comes with connected site pages? For example, there is no column or way that I can see to identify summary tasks in the task list. The default calendar view is disgustingly filled with mostly meaningless summary tasks. I want to only show actual tasks in the calendar view.

      I created an external column and connected it to an external list that we created with a bunch of different project fields, but the values are blank in my task list for some reason. I’m not sure why that is since the values are actually populated and displaying in an external type list.

      – Nick

    • #410742
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      I don’t work that much with the SharePoint task list but had a thought on at least part of your question. I’m not sure you can easily add columns to the task list (at least not out of the box). One thought on the calendar is that you could filter the calendar list to only tasks that have an assignment. Assigned not equal to (leave blank). Assumptions are that PMs aren’t assigning resources to summary tasks (a tried and true best practice) and that the assigned tasks are the more important tasks for the calendar. Other filters might work depending on what you want to display. Hope that helps…

    • #410754
      Nick Pallotta
      Guest

      Hi Larry,

      Thanks for the response. That is a decent suggestion and I took it. We use a third party calendar tool by Bamboo Solutions so I also connected the deliverables list to the calendar. So now I have assigned tasks and deliverables on it and made it a template. I would have rather filtered off summary tasks, but this is a good work around.

      Cheers
      – Nick

    • #410755
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Nick, glad you have a solution for you. But, assigning resources to summary tasks has always been against best practices. If you need to for your own needs then OK, but it is rare that assigning resources to summary tasks is a good thing. Just letting you know…

    • #410756
      Nick Pallotta
      Guest

      I advise against assigning resources to summary tasks for sure. But, we actually have the opposite problem in that people are reluctant to actually assign resources to tasks. So, this actually gives me more ammunition to let them know they need to assign resources in order for their calendar to work.

      I do know part of the reason is PM’s would like to publish the project every time a small change is made to a task. The entire team receives the update e-mail whether their specific task has actually changed or not (since every task gets modified on a publish). I have read on here that this is expected behavior and its something we just have to live with. But, it does make PM’s more reluctant to do the assignment and we do not have any governance in place yet to require it.

    • #410757
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Yea, not to change the subject but the email updates don’t do what they intended (IMHO). Biggest problem is that users get too many emails for little or no reason and so they ignore them or create a rule to delete them. Second, even if it does change it doesn’t provide enough information about that change to react properly. And last, it creates an assumption that teams are kept up to date when reality is that many important updates aren’t communicated at all. I’ve implemented or been involved in almost 100 clients and I’ve turned it off for all of them (after explaining the pros and cons of course). Instead, we design a proper communication plan without them…!

      So in your case it sounds like PMs are not making the changes they should be making specifically because of this “feature”. Hmm… Sorry but that’s how I feel…

    • #410795
      Nick Pallotta
      Guest

      Thanks Larry, I submitted an internal help ticket yesterday to work with me on disabling the notifications.

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